


Still Jack and Daniel - Full Circle - IV Breaking Apart

by Annejackdanny



Series: Still Jack and Daniel Series 3  - Full Circle [4]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Atlantis AU, Emotional Whump, Kid Fic, Little Daniel - Freeform, M/M, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-18
Updated: 2013-01-18
Packaged: 2017-11-25 22:52:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/643823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annejackdanny/pseuds/Annejackdanny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lost City is no longer lost. Jack and the Daniels arrive on Atlantis and are trying to deal with the fallout of what happened previously</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Jack and Daniel - Full Circle - IV Breaking Apart

**Author's Note:**

> I took the liberty of tweaking Atlantis canon and changed anything about the city and the mainland so that it fits with my story. The same goes for the way things work in the city. 
> 
> Contains mild swatting of the bratling - so, with this, you have been warned.

**Still Jack and Daniel**

– 

**Full Circle**

**IV**

  
  


**Breaking Apart**

**I**

It was dawn on the planet as they entered the atmosphere. The stars were just fading as the sun spread its light across the horizon. The gate hopper soared above the treetops of a forest, then into open terrain again where the gate was, still and looming, a dark circle against the orange sky. Daniel spotted a huge statue; a headless giant man sitting on a chair, not unlike those they had seen at the Ancient outposts on Taonas and Earth. Wherever his head had gone, only he would be able to tell if he could. It was the only building left in the area close to the gate. 

No people.

Daniel felt an intuitive longing to just stay here and never leave again. Solitude seemed like a great concept right now. 

Jack was at the built-in DHD, fumbling with the panel and the power source, cursing under his breath, then pushing the cluster of crystals in with a muttered, “About time.”

After zipping up the kid's jacket, Daniel scooped LD up and into his arms, trying to maneuver the pliant body into a comfortable position. He made his way to the pilot seats and sat down, positioning LD in his lap. 

Jack gave them a sideways glance, the shadow of a smile on his face. “Hey, grasshopper, we're about to go to Oz and you're going to sleep right through that?”

“He'll be mad he missed the ride,” Daniel said.

Jack reached out and Daniel tensed. It wasn't a conscious reaction, it just happened. Jack brushed the short bangs out of LD's face. “He's going to be all over the place once he's back. Shoulda brought a leash.”

There was a flicker of interest, a spark of curiosity in Daniel. “What do you think? What will it be like?” 

He was wondering if it'd be warm or cold in Atlantis, or if they were going to end up being vaporized because there was a shield protecting their gate? Maybe Atlantis was long gone and the gate wouldn't connect...

“No clue. Probably... very Ancient style?” Jack looked at him. “I need that address.”

“Oh, right.” He shifted LD and looked at his thigh, squinting at the symbols. “Ah... should have put my contacts back in.”

“Turn it a bit towards me. Yeah, I get it.” Jack punched in the symbols and they stared at the gate right in front of them as the chevrons lit up one by one. 

“Chevron four encoded,” Jack said in a dead on Walter-imitation. “Chevron five encoded. Chevron six encoded. Chevron seven encoded. Chevron eight... locked.”

By then Daniel had slipped the second contact lens in and blinked. 

“God speed.” He didn't think his General Hammond voice was very spot on, but Jack gave him a crooked grin. 

“Let's move out, kids,” Jack said and the gate hopper carried them into the vortex and...

  
  


...out to total darkness as they exited the gate... somewhere. The ship's lights scurried over walls and stairs. 

Jack let out a startled, “Whoa!” and they came to a breaking halt, hovering just above the ground.

“Let's see how this works.” Jack squinted at the screen. A text of Ancient writing showed up and started scrolling down the screen. “If I'm getting this right, and don't ask me how I know what it says, I have no idea - environmental sensors say there's oxygen, no measurable toxins. Viable life support, Sweet.”

Jackson squinted at the screen. “You're right. I think your unconscious mind automatically translates this stuff because the gene recognizes it. Maybe a leftover trait from the repository.” 

Jack shrugged. “Whatever. We got no life signs.” He grabbed his P90 from the empty seat to his left and shouldered it. “You take Daniel,” he ordered and slipped out of the cockpit. The back door of the gate hopper opened with a low hiss. 

Daniel followed Jack into what appeared to be a large hall. The gate had shut down and in the light of Jack's weapon Daniel saw something that looked like stained glass, reminding him of cathedral windows, behind the gate. They walked around the gate hopper and over what resembled a catwalk leading to a flight of wide stairs. 

He watched with growing fascination as lights lit up along the walkway's floor as Jack passed them. He peered to the left and spotted several doors and hallways leading out of the gate room. 

Once they had reached the stairs, all the lamps in the ground along the gate way - Daniel decided to call it that - had lit up and the resemblance with a catwalk was even more spot on. The rest of the gate room was still dipped in darkness. But when Jack set foot on the stairwell, the stairs lit up, too. 

“It’s welcoming you home,” Daniel said, his voice too loud in the stillness. “The... the city is reacting to your Ancient gene.”

“You think that's it, then? This is the Lost City?” Jack let out a low whistle as they ascended the wide stairwell to an area above the gate room. 

In front of them more of the stained glass caught Daniel's eyes. Balconies and walkways spread out from here, leading to doors and more hallways. Overhead lights flared up and soon they had a much better view of their surroundings.

“Yes, I think this is it.” Daniel jiggled the boy in his arms to get a better hold on him as they stood at the top of the stairs and looked around. “Well, it seems a lot bigger than the outposts we've seen. Kind of fancy, too.” 

They turned left and walked into an area Daniel tagged as the control room. It had a glass facade and a balcony towards the gate. A DHD, looking similar to the one in the gate hopper. Several monitors connected to control panels lit up when they entered. 

“Cool,” Jack drawled and stopped by a screen that came instantly to life. “You were right. It's big.”

They saw a layout of the city displayed on the screen, a red dot blinking in what appeared to be the central tower. 

“We are here,” Jack said, tapping a finger on the dot. 

“Looks like a snowflake,” Daniel observed and, at a quizzical look from Jack, added, “The city's outlines. Remind me of a snowflake. Question is, where do we go next?”

Jack gazed at the layout for a moment and then gently placed his hand on a flat surface next to the screen. The plan rotated, changed, zoomed in and gave them a more detailed version of their location. 

“Okay...” Daniel started reading inscriptions. “This is the control room. Closest areas are briefing rooms, some offices... above us there’s some kind of hangar, probably for ships.”

“It's waking up,” Jack said beside him, his voice oddly absent. “I can feel it. Power sources are right here, but there's a core under the city that operates everything.” He paused and stared at nothing in particular, eyes half closed. “Wow, that's... different.” 

“Jack? Is it... talking to you or something?” 

“Or something,” Jack said, then took a deep breath and shook his head. “I don't know what it does. It's not talking-talking. It just... it was the same with the gate hopper. I think of something and it reacts.” He held up his hand, gazed at it for a moment as though it had just grown there, and shook his head again. “I don't know if this is a good thing or not.”

“But?” Daniel definitely heard a 'but' there.

“I know where we have to go. I think.”

Jack led them out of the control room and down a hallway. They stopped by a door which opened immediately, revealing an elevator. Jack touched something on the floor plan appearing on a screen at the wall and they started to move down. 

“It knows what I want. It's just plain weird.” Jack gave him a lopsided grin. “It's also very cool.”

Daniel couldn't help but smirk. “Are you coming around to liking the thingamajig gene after all?”

The elevator came to a halt, doors swishing open. As they stepped into the corridor Jack took a moment to threat assess before he replied. “Technology that interfaces with human minds is creepy. Can you imagine Maybourne having that gene? Or Simmons? Or, god forbid, Kinsey? Things would go pretty downhill from there.”

“Yes. Or Colonels who like to shoot at things,” Daniel said dryly. “Try not to blow anything up, please.”

“You're just miffed because you don't have it,” Jack said smugly. 

“All the things I could learn and explore,” Daniel said wistfully. They had had this conversation before, back on Christmas at Jack’s place, and apparently there was no point in arguing their different views on the Ancient gene. 

“Said like a true scientist,” Jack said, rolling his eyes.

Daniel snorted and, for the first time since... he felt a little less tense, a little more like himself. 

“Hello,” she said and smiled. “You may enter your query verbally, or by entering it manually on the console before you.”

“It's a hologram,” Jack shared in a stage whisper.

“Right. And it speaks English... that's strange.” Daniel moved LD around again and was relieved when Jack took the boy from him. 

“Talk to her,” Jack prompted.

“What? Oh, right...” Daniel turned toward the hologram and cleared his throat. “Hello. Can you, uh, help us?” 

“I am Ganos Lal. What subject would you like to learn about?”

“Learn?”

“This program is educational. Please chose a subject you want to study,” Ganos Lal repeated, still smiling.

“Oh, err... we need to find a way to extract Ancient knowledge. We were advised to come here for help. One of us has taken in an Ancient repository. Like, uh, the place of Legacy. One of those head... a device that transfers ancient knowledge.” 

He had been about to use Jack's term 'head suckers' but caught himself in time. How was he going to explain this so the hologram's programming understood? Of course LD hadn’t stuck his head into one of those things, but the effect on him was similar and he guessed that whatever means of healing him were here must be based on removing the head sucker's effects on the human brain. 

“Take the boy to the resurrection room. He will be treated there.” She turned her head towards Jack. “You have the superior gene. You have woken up Atlantis.”

“I did.” Jack said, not without pride.

“You will know how to treat the boy once you reach the resurrection room.” The hologram flickered and stabilized again. “Your mission is accomplished once the child has been healed. All debts are paid then.”

“Well, they weren’t our debts. Oma put her foot in and we did her dirty work to put things right,” Jack said, scowling.

The hologram looked at them blankly. 

Daniel stared at her open mouthed for a moment. This couldn't be... or could it? He raised a hand like a student in a class room. “Excuse me... Ganos Lal? You're not really a hologram, are you?”

Jack raised his left eyebrow at him. “Jackson?”

“Well, first off she speaks English. That's not possible since this hologram must have been programmed millions of years ago...”

“Atlantis has absorbed and analyzed your language patterns when you arrived here and fed it into its databanks,” Ganos Lal interrupted him. “I am now capable of speaking your language.”

“See? There,” Jack said with a wave at the hologram. “Explains it.” Then he turned back to Ganos Lal. “Hey! Are you eavesdropping on us?”

“Atlantis has interfaced with your mind,” she said.

“Right,” Jack muttered, grimacing. 

But Daniel shook his head. “Secondly, she knows about our mission.”

“Yeah, well, she does that mind reading thing,” Jack grumbled.

“Atlantis does not read your mind. It merely reacts to your needs regarding the city’s technology and resources,” Ganos Lal said stoically. After a pause she added, “Your presence here will not go unnoticed by others.”

“I think she’s trying to tell us something,” Daniel said. It was more a hunch than anything else. Addressing Ganos Lal he asked, “What do you mean? The Others will know we’re here? So? They won’t step in to stop us from doing anything. None interference rules, right? All they can do is watch.”

She suddenly turned to look over her shoulder as though someone or something was approaching her. Another indication that she was anything but a hologram. When she turned back, she blinked. “Do not attempt to travel to other worlds.” 

“Oh-kay, no sweat. Once we’re done here, we’ll go home,” Jack said with a shrug.

“You’re trying to warn us,” Daniel said thoughtfully. “Of what? Who will notice we’re here?” 

“You have your answer. I suggest you act on it, Daniel Jackson,” she said stiffly and vanished through the dome of the room, leaving tendrils of white light that slowly disappeared as well. 

“I guess it was the only way she could act without blatantly breaking the non-interference rule the Ancients are so fond off,” Daniel assumed.

Jack looked blankly at him for a moment, then nodded. “Resurrection room. I know where it is. It was on the floor plan we looked at earlier. C'mon, let's go.”

*** 

“Your journey is almost over, Danielis.” 

“Are we there? Are we in Atlantis?” 

“Yes, precious child, we are.”

Daniel looked up from the symbols he'd been drawing in the sand with a stick. As soon as he lost his focus on them they vanished, but that was okay, he had drawn them so often he knew them by heart. Aiyana sat across from him, her long auburn hair glowing in the sun and moving softly in the light breeze. 

“I slept for a very long time,” Daniel said thoughtfully. He was not sure how long he had been asleep. But it seemed a long time. 

“Yes. To protect your mind from damage,” she said tenderly. 

He knew he'd been securely wrapped in her arms the whole time after they had left the ship of the malus man. 

They were safe here in the desert. Part of him was aware it was only an illusion of some sort. It was another place his mind had created for both of them. And she had come and gone inside him to keep him safe from what the malus... the evil man had done. 

_Ba'al,_ he thought, _that was his name. He's gone now. Like the other one. Anubis, he's gone, too._

“But I will wake up soon, right? And then my dad will be there? And the other me?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“But...” He tried to remember everything. That other part of him, the part Ba'al had hurt so badly. Would it be there when he woke up? “Will I be me again?”

He was just a child now, but he knew he used to be more than that. He used to be smart and things used to be complicated somehow. Complicated, but not... bad. Difficult sometimes, but... more right than he felt now.

“You will be as you were before Ba'al hurt you, yes.” 

That was good. He felt a bit cruvus like this. A bit... wrong. He also felt like a huge burden had been taken from him. It was a very funny feeling; both light and heavy. He wanted to be like before Ba’al had hurt him. But at the same time there was something he had to do once he was ‘whole’ again. A decision he had to make. And while he couldn’t quite remember what decision that was, he knew he had been shying away from it for a while now. 

All of this was confusing. 

“The evil is gone,” he said out loud what he had thought earlier. “Anubis. And Ba'al. Gone.”

“Gone,” she confirmed with a sad little smile. “You and your family took great risks and great sacrifices to save your world and the universe from the Goa'uld.”

He frowned. Something wasn't right. “Then why are you not happy? Shouldn't you be happy? And Oma, too?” 

“We are very grateful, Danielis,” she whispered. “I wish we could repay you for what you have done. I wish I could.”

Daniel looked at her thoughtfully. “We found Atlantis. And you'll wake me up so we can explore the city and then we can go home again. That's good. You kept me safe all this time. You made it so that I wasn't scared anymore.” He started drawing the symbols again. “And you gave me this. I will remember them and tell my dad about them. He'll know what to do. He's very brave, you know?”

Aiyana chuckled. “Yes, Danielis, I know. So are you. All of you are very brave.”

“That's because we're SG-1,” Daniel said proudly. 

“It is because you have such strong bonds of friendship and love,” Aiyana said. Then she held out her hand. “It is time to go, precious child.”

A jolt of sudden fear surged through Daniel as their fingers touched. “You are leaving.”

“Yes.”

“Will I remember?” The air around him seemed to move and twist and Daniel watched as the sand began to curl and whirl around their bare feet. “Will I remember all the knowledge of the Ancients?”

“You will remember what you have to. What you need and when you need it.”

The sand began to rise and turn into a twister, becoming larger and stronger every minute, reminding Daniel of the sandstorms on Abydos. And it carried him away. He was flying with it and he had to think of Dorothy and the cyclone and caves and Flyboy and Jack and Big Daniel and Sam and Teal'c, and as he was soaring through nothingness his mind was put together again like a puzzle. A puzzle made of grains of sand, only that they were little pieces of memories and knowledge and thoughts and pictures and words and feelings and...

***

The miniscules particles of energy floating inside the stasis pod reminded Daniel of the sandstorms they had to endure so often on Abydos and back in Giza when he'd been a kid. 

Daniel and Jack were standing in front of a wall panel and Dainel watched his friend touching control sensors in rapid change order. Jack’s eyes, however, stayed fixed on the stasis pod. 

The particles swarmed around the small body, went inside him, moved out again and then just vanished. 

The top of the stasis pod slid open and they rushed over to catch LD as he fell over, face forward and right into Jack's arms. 

Jack lowered him to the ground and Daniel crouched next to them to feel the kid's pulse. Steady, strong, normal. 

“Daniel? Hey, kiddo, time to wake up.” Jack brushed a hand through LD’s hair. 

“Jack?” He didn't open his eyes, but licked his lips. “Do they have coffee in Atlantis?”

“Let's try and find the espresso machine together, huh?” Jack patted his face. 

LD opened his eyes and smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Only you could come back from this, asking for coffee, you little...” Jack trailed off and for a split second Daniel saw the unshed tears in those weary brown eyes. 

Daniel and Jack each took one of the kid's hands and pulled him into a sitting position. 

“How do you feel?” Daniel asked. His voice was trembling slightly with relief. “Dizzy? Headache?”

“Thirsty,” LD said, his voice raspy. “I'm so thirsty.” 

“We got water in the hopper.” Jack put a supporting hand on LD's back.

“What's a hopper?” LD asked as he tried to get up and slumped back on his butt with a groan. “Legs not working.”

“Easy, buddy.” Jack helped him to stand, holding him by the shoulders as he started to sway. 

Leaning against Jack, LD murmured. “Give me a minute.” 

“Let's take this slowly. You've been out of it for a while,” Jack said. 

“How long?” LD asked.

“Long enough to have us freak a little,” Daniel said lightly.

“Sorry.” 

Without a word Jack enfolded him into his arms and hugged him so tightly that Daniel had to wince on behalf of mini-him. 

He slipped out of the room to give them some privacy and made his way back to the gate hopper, his Zat in hand just to be on the safe side. Everything around him was silent. A ghost town. He tried to imagine how it had been when its inhabitants still lived here. The corridors full of people; chatting, laughing, arguing, on their way to whatever destination they were headed. He wondered what the other buildings housed, if there were streets outside and sidewalks and bridges and highways. 

There was no daylight, no windows to give them a view of the outside. 

Just as he wondered about that Daniel passed by an open door and his eye caught something that had him do a double take. He walked back the couple of steps to the doorway and peered inside, the Zat raised. 

What he had seen, however, was just a reflection of himself in a large panorama window. Daniel gazed at the view, and at the mirror image of himself being slightly distorted because of the water. 

He fumbled his radio from his jacket and thumped it. “Jack? I think you should see this.”

Jack sounded alarmed when he responded after a moment. “See what? And where the hell are you?”

“Just down the corridor from the resurrection room. There's an open door.”

“We're on our way.” 

It didn't take long for them to find him. LD entered, followed by Jack and they joined Daniel by the window. 

“Holy crap,” Jack muttered.

“We're underwater.” LD pressed his hands against the window. “There're fish!” He pointed at a shoal of small neon blue fish passing by in the distance.

“That's kinda apt, isn't it? Atlantis, bottom of the ocean?” Jack scratched his head. 

“Maybe we can ask that hologram how it ended up down here,” Daniel suggested.

“It wasn't a hologram, though,” Jack pointed out.

“She wasn't, but there's probably a real hologram in that room.”

LD's head ping ponged back and forth between them. “Hologram?”

“There's an educational hologram. You can ask it all kinds of questions about Atlantis,” Daniel provided. 

“Really? Can we go there?”

“Maybe later,” Jack said. “First we need to get you some water and something to eat. Then we have to figure out a way to go home.”

“More sandwiches?” LD sighed.

“We have MRE, too. Take your pick.”

They left the room and found the elevator that took them back to the gate room area. Little Daniel seemed to look at everything at once, his head swiveling from left to right as he kept spinning on his heels, walking backwards, then forwards again, trying to take it all in. 

Daniel thought he had never seen anything more beautiful or more vibrant with life than this child that had been still and silent for so long. He felt a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach and the sudden urge to laugh. It took him a moment to realize that watching his small version back in action was making him happy. 

They had him back. He was alive and all right. It seemed to make what had happened on Ba'al's ship a little easier. Saving the world had been worth it. Getting the kid back was definitely a treat. 

When they returned to the gate hopper they removed the Kor mak bracelets and stored them away. Daniel still wore the body shield around his other wrist and on the spur of the moment he removed it and gave it to the kid. “Just in case you get lost and run into some nasty surprises. You can adjust its strength by touching the sensors. Ba'al upgraded it, so it should protect you from any kind of weapon we know.”

“Cool,” LD said. “Thanks.”

“That's no ticket to run off and start your own expedition,” Jack warned, a sharp edge to his voice. 

“I won't,” LD promised lightly. “I'll be good.”

“I believe you have the best intentions. That's not good enough. You're not wandering off, period. Understood?” 

LD squinted up at Jack, probably gauging the mood he was in. “Off world rules? No wandering, no touching, no rushing onto things without caution?” 

“Got it in one. Don't get carried away,” Jack said, then he announced it was time to eat and walked away to get food and drinks.

LD watched him leave and muttered, “He's cranky.”

Daniel shook his head. “Give him some slack. We thought we were going to lose you. You probably don't realize it, but you've been asleep for hours and before that you were...”

“I was going Ancient on you,” LD said quietly. “I know. I remember some of it. Not everything, but some. I know Ba'al and Anubis are dead.”

“Yes. We won.” Daniel hoped LD never found out how bitter that victory had tasted until now.

Jack returned with the food and handed LD a bottle. They watched while he downed the water, then let out a very loud and impressive belch, making them all laugh despite Jack's obligatory remark that someone had lost his manners in the Milky Way. 

They went out to sit on the steps leading from the gate room to the higher area and had self-heated MRE. They compared chicken with broccoli to macaroni with cheese and beef stew as they ate. For a few precious moments they just sat there with their meals and took a break from everything. 

LD was sitting between them, wolfing down his macaroni as though it was the most delicious thing he’d ever had. 

“So, Daniel, what do you know about this place?” Daniel asked once LD had eased his most pressing hunger and thirst. “Do you still remember anything of the Ancient knowledge?”

“I remember everything about Atlantis' history. The Alterans brought Atlantis here from Earth after the plague destroyed most of them in the Milky Way.”

“They _brought_ it here? The whole city?” Jack asked.

“Yes, it's a city ship. It can fly.”

“You're kidding me.”

“No, I'm not. They came here and seeded new life. At first it went very well. A thousand worlds were inhabited and civilizations grew everywhere. Then, one day, the Lantians... that's how the Alterans called themselves once they got here... encountered a very dark world where they met their worst enemy.” 

“What enemy?” Jack asked, alarmed.

“I'm not sure what or who that enemy was. Oma didn’t give me much info about that. But it fed on humans and the Lantians couldn't defeat it. They woke it up somehow or... I'm not sure. Anyway, that enemy destroyed whole civilizations by culling humans and feeding on them.”

“Feeding on them? You mean like vampires?” Jack groused.

“They took away their life energy. People they fed on aged in minutes and then died. Anyway, in the end only Atlantis was left. The city's shield protected Atlantis and its people, but the new enemy attacked again and again and the city was under siege for many, many years. Finally the last remaining Lantians decided to use their gate to go back to Earth in one of their gate ships and they submerged the city in the ocean so that it would stay protected from the enemy and be safe until its people might return.”

“So it's true then. They all left. There's no one here. Except of the living hologram, maybe,” Daniel said. 

“And that ominous enemy,” Jack cautioned.

“Aiyana said the enemy went back to sleep. It can sleep for hundred of years before it has to feed again. She said Oma made sure we’re safe here,” LD said.

“Aiyana? Did you see her?” Daniel asked, puzzled.

“She was with me all the time after we left Taonas. She slipped into me to shield me from the worst of what the mind probe had done to me. You could say she kept my brain together.”

“Least she could do,” Jack said snidely. 

LD frowned. “She took a very great risk in protecting me. Even doing that much goes against the interference rule of the Ancients. Especially since she's supporting Oma.”

Jack's lips curled into a thin, hard line, but he didn't say anything else and started to pack the empty MRE pouches together. 

“So, what are we doing next?” LD asked. 

Jack stood and balled up their garbage. “We're going home.”

“What?!” Daniel and the kid exchanged a sheepish grin after their joined exclamation. 

“Jack, we can't just go home now...”

“We just got here. We should at least...”

“...explore the city...”

“...find out how big it is...”

“...if there're any historical records in their database...”

“Imagine, the Ancients have lived here!”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Are you done?”

They looked at each other again. “No,” LD said with a pout. “But you're not going to listen anyway, right?”

“Jack, you should consider finding more of those energy sources at least. To take them home and bribe the President,” Daniel reminded his glaring friend.

LD perked up at this. “There might be huge honkin' space guns here, Jack! All you gotta do is find them.”

“I'm considering it... done. We'll go home and send a team of happy scientists to drool over it.”

“Jack,” Daniel said in the reasonable voice he liked to use when dealing with O'Neill mulishness. “They can send as many teams as they like. Without you they won't even get her to switch on the light.”

“ _Her,_ Jackson?” 

“Atlantis. The city. Her.”

“And besides, we're here now. Why can't we stay for a while and explore it?” LD chimed in.

“Oh, I don't know, maybe because we're running a bit low on provisions? We don't have any clean clothes and there's probably no coffee maker here,” Jack snapped, turned around and stalked away. “I want both of you in the ship and ready to leave.”

LD jumped to his feet, but Daniel grabbed a fistful of his jacket to stop him from running after the irritated colonel. “Let me handle this, okay?”

LD frowned at him. “Why? I'm the cute one, he'll listen to me.”

Daniel bit back a laugh. He was about to reply when the floor started to sway and the whole gate room shook violently. Without a word he snatched up the kid and they skidded across the rearing ground to the gate hopper. Jack yelled at them to hurry, but his voice was swallowed by a roaring and moaning as steel, naquadah and glass began to quake and clank. 

Daniel all but threw the kid into the ship and with a breakneck jump followed him inside. The door closed behind them and Jack was already at the controls.

“What's happening?” Daniel yelled. 

“We're moving,” Jack yelled back, then stopped whatever he was doing and just stared out the front screen. “Holy crap.”

“What?” LD scrambled over to the cockpit. “It's rising! The city is rising! Look!”

Daniel joined them and together they watched as daylight began to flood through the windows, in yellow, green and purple colors due to the stained glass, giving the gate room a cathedral touch. 

The quaking and moaning stopped, as did the upward motion. There was a final ripple that went through the whole building, then all was quiet again. 

With a huff Jack slumped into the flight seat. 

LD turned to him with wide bright eyes. “You woke it up, Jack. You made it rise!”

Jack looked back at him, apparently trying to keep a scowl firmly in place, but failing miserably. “One heck of a ride, eh?”

“Can't we...”

“Daniel...”

“But it's such a... a... gigantic find. It's so pristine. As though it has just waited for us. For you. It waited for you to rouse it,” LD pleaded.

“And you really should have at least something for the Joint Chiefs to squeal over. They won't be happy you stole the outpost's power source,” Daniel added.

He felt drawn to this place and he didn't want to leave it so soon. Atlantis, the Lost City, was like a treasure. LD had nailed it on the head; it was pristine. And right now it was theirs. Theirs alone. He wanted them to be the first ones to walk these halls, to open the doors. Since they had arrived Daniel had felt a fresh boost of energy. Something that drowned out the darkness a little, a desire to uncover all of Atlantis secrets. 

They had made it this far, had gone through hell and back... Daniel wasn't ready to share this city with anyone else just yet. 

**II**

“All right, here's the deal,” Jack said finally.

Little Daniel had kept his fingers crossed – in his mind at least – and was now whooping – on the inside. If Jack was making deals it meant he was willing to compromise and that was a good thing. 

“I know where the city's power sources are. And if I'm right, they're the same things we used to get here. We'll go looking for them.”

“YES! I mean, okay.” Daniel felt the heat rise in his cheeks upon his outburst of enthusiasm.

Jack held up his warning finger. “Aht! We'll go looking for them together. We’re not splitting up. We’re not doing extra tours and we’re not stopping to translate every single chicken scratching you might find on our way.”

Daniel sighed. This was one of those talks... “Okay,” he repeated. “But once we’ve found them, can't we...”

“Once we’ve found them and no one has gotten lost or eaten by Lantian zombies, we can do a little sightseeing,” Jack said with a put upon sigh. 

“Really?” Daniel spun around to smirk at his big counterpart. “See? I knew he'd listen to me.”

“Because you're the cute one, yeah, I know,” BD snorted.

Jack patted Daniel's shoulder and, when he turned back to him, said, “When sightseeing time is over we dial the gate and go home.” 

“And if there's going to be an expedition and they need you to switch on the light, we can all come back,” Daniel concluded. “Right?”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “Aren’t you forgetting something, buddy?”

Daniel blinked. “What?” 

“Ohhh,” Jack drawled, “getting big again, maybe?” 

Daniel swallowed. Getting big... He could get big again now. His duty was done. He tried to wrap his head around that, tried to feel anything; like relief for example. But he suddenly found the concept of ‘getting big’ very hard to grasp. 

“Of course,” he said awkwardly. “Yeah. Getting big.” He quickly focused on the main issue. “But then we could come back, right?” 

“If Hammond approves it.”

“He will. How can he not! I mean look at this! This is the real deal.” 

Jack crouched by the built-in DHD and opened the panel. “I think someone is a bit hyper... aw, crap.”

“What?” Daniel and BD tried to look over Jack's shoulder into the open slot underneath the DHD.

Jack pulled the power source from Taonas out and showed it to them. Shaped like a rough cylinder, it was made of orange crystals stuck together like a cluster. Daniel had seen in his mind how they were supposed to work and that they lit up when connected to a conductor. Only now the crystals were dark and their colors had turned into a muddy brown. 

“It's depleted,” he said. 

“Oy,” Jack muttered. 

“But we can dial home with the city's DHD,” Daniel went on. “Atlantis has the only DHD that’s able to dial Earth from the Pegasus galaxy. It has an extra control crystal to do so.”

“You sure?” Jack stood and put the useless crystals on the pilot seat. 

“Yeah. It's all in here.” Daniel tipped a hand against his head. 

“Good enough for me. Let's go.” 

They followed Jack to the control room on the next floor. Jack took a long look at the DHD, but turned to one of the other consoles and placed his hand on a pad next to a screen showing the layout of the city. 

“What are you doing?” Daniel asked, studying the floor plan.

“He can link with the city,” BD said. “That's how we found the holo room.”

“Oh! Of course. Yes, the city reacts to his Ancient gene. To a certain degree it reacts without him having to touch anything. Like lights and life support and stuff like that. But certain areas only react when he's interfacing with it directly,” Daniel said, excited. 

“You know all this from the Ancient knowledge Oma put into your head?” BD seemed impressed.

“Yes, I suppose. When Ba'al used the mind probe on me it all surfaced at once. It was a bit overwhelming. It was...” He trailed off and caught his bottom lip between his teeth for a moment. “Most of what happened on Ba'al's ship is a bit foggy. I remember building the matter stream device. I remember Ba'al wanting to come here instead of helping us fight Anubis, and I had no choice but to give him all the information he needed. The only thing I could do was convince him we needed the matter stream device here, too.”

“You fooled him! You know, I was wondering about that... why would he beam all that stuff up from the SGC at your request if he was never going to actually return to Earth for the battle,” BD said. 

“When he probed my mind and found out about Atlantis, he told me he changed his mind and wanted to go to Pegasus instead of beating Anubis. He wanted me to tell him anything we'd need to conquer the city. So I told him we need the matter streamer and he believed me and beamed up everything on my list,” Daniel said quietly. He had no conscious memory of how exactly he'd been able to make Ba'al believe that. All he knew was that he had tried and succeeded. He shrugged. “At least I got something right. I probably wasn't very useful in all this on the whole.”

BD gave him a surprised look. “You're kidding, right? You talked us through everything we had to do to get those crystals. You were our yellow brick road, Daniel. Jack was Dorothy, but you were the... oh, great, now I'm starting to talk in Oz references.” 

Daniel smiled, but sobered immediately. “Ba'al made you his Lo'taur.”

“Yeah, but not for long,” BD said with a shrug. “Don't worry about it. It's over.”

“You did it so he wouldn't torture me.” Daniel remembered how scared he'd been of Ba'al. He recalled hanging from some kind of web while BD had been on his knees and Ba'al had played with daggers. 

_This will go through his flesh like butter... maybe puncture a lung..._

Daniel hugged himself, a shudder running down his spine. He caught his big self doing the same. “Did he hurt you, BD?” He had to know. 

BD's arms fell to his side and he shook his head. “Nothing I can't handle. And nothing you need to worry about. We all did what we had to do. You, me, Jack and Sam and Teal'c.”

Daniel knew there was something he wasn't supposed to know. Something his big self was holding back. He had a pretty good idea what that might be. He remembered how BD had been dressed after he'd been made Lo'taur. And Daniel didn't have the luxury of childish innocence. Not anymore now that he was back to normal again. 

_Normal_ , he thought. _This feels normal. How does it feel to get big again?_ He chose not to dwell on that. 

He felt Jack's eyes on him and turned around. Jack had stepped back from the console and was watching them, had probably listened to everything they'd said. His face was unreadable though, closed up, blank. 

BD broke the silence. “Did you find anything?”

“We have a problem,” Jack said flatly.

“What problem?” Daniel asked, glad for the change of subject, yet anxious about what Jack might have discovered. 

“I checked the city’s power levels. There are three power sources keeping the city alive and going. Two of them are dead. The third one is operational, but if we dial out we'll kill that, too. Probably before we can establish the wormhole. We're stuck.”

“But they're supposed to have an eternal lifespan,” Daniel blurted out. “The Ancients made them to last forever. They're not like batteries or something. Which also means we can't recharge them.”

“The one on the gate hopper died,” Jack reminded him. “And the one that powered the Ancient outpost in Antarctica was dead, too. Which is why we had to get the Taonas one in the first place.”

“They're millions of years old. Maybe waking up the city has created a short circuit of some sort. And the crystals we used in the gate hopper might have been weak before we used them,” BD said.

“So we're stranded,” Daniel said, a funny feeling in his stomach. “We can't go home.”

“Yep. Seems like you get your wish for staying a while,” Jack said with a grimace.

A sudden jolt of homesickness caught Daniel off guard. Staying here for a while and exploring the city was one thing. Not being able to leave was another story. Daniel felt like he hadn't been home in years and years, not just a couple of days. He missed Sam and Teal'c already. And his dog. 

His dog!

“Who's taking care of Flyboy?” he asked, suddenly worried for his four-footed friend. 

“I took him to the mountain with me and assigned Siler to dog sitting duties. Carter and T. are taking care of him now, don't worry,” Jack said.

Daniel nodded and tried to be grown-up about this. But he knew Floyby was missing them and he couldn't help but be worried. 

“Can't we dial out period?” BD asked.

“Well, we should be able to dial out to Pegasus addresses,” Jack said. “If I got it right, dialing Earth will rob a lot of power from those things. Normal gate operation should be possible.”

“If there are outposts like Taonas on other worlds here, there should be power sources. Maybe we'll find one that works,” Daniel said. 

“The database has gate addresses,” Jack confirmed, but didn't look happy. “You have any idea how long it'll take us to go to all of these planets and look for power sources?” 

“It's a possibility. If you have a better idea, let's hear it,” BD said, grimacing. “We need food, too, if we're stuck here. So we better find something to trade for.”

“Can we still use the gate hopper?” Daniel asked. 

“I guess. Only the additional crystals looked dead,” Jack said wearily. 

“Then we can use it to go through the gate and find people to trade with. Maybe someone knows where to find the crystals.”

“Yeah, and maybe we'll find that sleeping enemy and wake it up,” Jack bitched. “Remember what that wannabe hologram said? About others might notice we’re here? Seems not so cryptic now, does it?”

“We'll be careful,” BD said. “What else can we do?”

“Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's about time for Oma to show up and pay her debts? We've jumped through enough hoops for her. I bet she could get us home like this.” Jack snapped his fingers. 

“She won't do it,” Daniel said. “The Others will stop her if she tries.”

“Of course they would.” Jack looked like he wanted to shoot someone. But after a moment of brooding silence he said in a rather business like voice, “Let's ration our food and medical supplies, grab our sleeping bags and get comfortable. There are living quarters on the upper level. I could do with a bathroom, too.”

Daniel would rather have taken a stroll around the city, maybe check out one of the other sections and take a look outside. He had been asleep for so long he thought he wasn't going to need any sleep for the next couple of days. However, he saw how beat Jack and BD looked and so he traipsed along without complaining. Besides, he shared Jack's need for a bathroom.

They had no problem finding the quarters. Jack seemed to have the city's layout memorized, at least for the tower they were in. 

Like in movies featuring deserted houses, all the furniture was covered with white sheets and they were pleased to find a huge bed, several chairs and a table underneath. Jack decided they weren't going to split up and so they took one of the larger quarters and made it their own. 

They went back and forth between the gate hopper and their new quarters, carrying boxes with MRE, med kits and sleeping bags. After a survey of what they had and rationing their food supplies, they came to the conclusion they weren't going to starve or die of thirst for a week. They were also equipped with Tylenol, band aids, antibiotics, antiseptic gel and other basic medical supplies for a while. Instead of toothbrushes Jack pulled out several packs of dental gum from somewhere and the grown-ups – body wise – were going to grow beards soon. They both looked a bit scruffy already. 

Daniel glanced at their provisions and back at Jack. “I'm sorry. I should have thought of bringing more food supplies. And other stuff.” 

For some reason packing extra clothes, razors, and toothbrushes hadn't been on Daniel's priority list for their journey to Tanoas and beyond. He had no recollection of why he hadn't insisted on packing more supplies when he had found out that Ba'al intended to go to Pegasus instead of returning to Earth. Or maybe he had told Ba'al, but Ba'al had had other plans. The Goa'uld weren't too keen on Tau'ri food and their living standards were different. Perhaps Ba'al had planned on taking his own supplies to Atlantis when he'd picked up his queen, Qetesh, on their way. 

Daniel didn't know, but fact was; they were stuck on an alien world with very little to work with and he somehow felt responsible for that. 

“I think you had other stuff on your mind,” Jack said with a shrug. “We'll get by somehow.”

“Actually, I don't know what exactly was on my mind. But knowing Ba'al was going to deceive us should have made me take more precautions,” Daniel said. He hung his head. “I kept trying to tell you what he was up too, but everything was so confusing. It was like every time I tried to talk to you about anything else but the immediate problems we had to solve, I lost my train of thoughts. Part of my mind kept drifting in all kinds of directions, occupied with all the information Oma had put in there. And when Aiyana showed up, she made me go to sleep.” 

“You kept mentioning Pegasus,” BD said. “But we didn't know what you were trying to tell us.”

“I should have...” Tried harder. Tried harder to fight the mind control in the first place. Here he had worked so hard on getting stronger physically, while in the end he needed mental strength. And there he had failed. 

Jack cut him off rather harshly. “None of this is your fault, so stop it right there. You want to blame someone? Blame your glowy friends. Or Ba'al. Take your pick, but stop beating yourself up over this.”

BD said, “None of us would've been able to fight that probe. Jack couldn't when Anubis used it on him, and he's trained to resist drugs and mind control.” 

“Listen to him, he's right,” Jack said.

Daniel eyed his guardian warily, wishing he could help to ease whatever was eating away at Jack. He looked dog tired and there was something else Daniel couldn't pinpoint. He had sensed it in BD, too; a tension that had nothing to do with being exhausted from lack of sleep and the sketchiness of their current situation. There was something that went far deeper. 

Daniel wanted to ask, again, what had happened on the Ha'tak while he'd been caught in his own head for the most part. He knew he'd spent a long time locked up in a holding cell with Jack. Where had BD been then? Sam and Teal'c? What had Ba'al done to all of them Daniel didn't know about? 

What, exactly, had BD been forced to do while being Ba'al's Lo'taur?

Yet, a frightened little part of Daniel didn't want to hear any details.

Jack's face softened as he reached out to ruffle Daniel's hair. “C'mon, let's get comfy. Shower, sleep... and then we're going to take a city tour.”

“I’m not tired,” Daniel said before he could zip it. “I mean... you guys sleep. I’ll take watch or something.” In reality he wanted to talk to the hologram – real or otherwise – and ask her a hundred and one questions about stuff Oma had put in his head but hadn’t elaborated much on. 

Of course sensing how up-tied Jack was, Daniel didn’t see any chance of going to talk to the hologram on his own, but it couldn’t hurt to ask – later.

“Let’s get clean,” BD suggested. “I’m first.” And before anyone could answer, he was in the bathroom, closing the door firmly behind him.

They had put three sleeping bags on the bed for the lack of blankets and Daniel briefly wondered if there were blankets and pillows stored away somewhere. 

After a moment of silence, he asked, “Jack?”

“Daniel?”

“Why didn't Sam and Teal'c come with us?” He wondered if Sam would have been able to find a way home. 

“We kind of disobeyed a direct order when we highjacked the gate hopper and the power source. I sent them home to put a good word in for us. And to keep them out of trouble,” Jack said quietly. 

“Oh.” Daniel had been working for the military long enough to put two and two together. The lives of the many weighing more than the life of one. The outpost had been robbed of its power source and a highly advanced space ship had been taken – to save him.

He felt a sliver of fear when he asked, “They aren't going to court martial you because of me, are they?”

“I wouldn't worry too much. Hammond will stick up for us once Carter and T. have had their say.” After a pause, Jack continued, “And if they do, it was well worth it.”

They fell silent. Jack rubbed his eyes and fingered the material of the sleeping bag as though he was trying to decide if he wanted to take a nap. Daniel suspected that once Jack fell asleep he wasn't going to wake up for a while, even if the city drowned again or blew up around their ears.

After a moment BD returned from his shower, his hair still slightly damp. He stuffed his black t-shirt into his gray jeans and grinned. “That was good. I feel almost human again.” 

“You even look like one,” Jack said dryly, then nudged Daniel. “You wanna go next?”

Daniel shook his head and wrinkled his nose. “Your turn. You need it baaaaaad.” 

“There was a reason I missed you... can’t remember it now,” Jack grumbled and heaved himself off the bed. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said before he went to take his shower. 

BD rubbed his eyes and sat next to him on the bed. “Are you okay?” 

Daniel nodded. “Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Home.” That wasn’t exactly true, but close enough. 

“Oh.”

Daniel nodded again. “If we won't go home again...”

“We will.”

“You don't know that. And this is just hypothetically speaking anyway. So, if we can't go home again... if we have to settle on some other planet because we can't stay here either, since there's no food here, and we need to find people to trade with, or something.” Daniel chewed on his bottom lip, trying to process his thoughts. 

“So, basically, if we're stranded here,” he continued after a moment, “I won't get big again.”

There, he’d said it. He waited for the world to stop and the despair to swallow him, but nothing happened. If he was perturbed about something then it was the lack of feelings; enthusiasm at the thought of being re-sized or anxiety about the possibility he might not be re-sized at all. 

“If we go home... and I'm sure Jack won't rest until we do... you're free,” BD said. “You did what you were supposed to do – and even more. We got rid of Anubis and Ba'al in one go. The majority of the Goa'uld are gone. More and more Jaffa are joining Teal'c and Bra'atc in their quest to be free.”

“There are still Kul warriors though. And as long as there are breeding queens and minor system lords...” Daniel said.

“Yes, but it'll be hard for any of those system lords to gain even a fraction of the power Ba'al and Anubis had. The SG teams will take care of taking out the rest of the trash one by one and the free Jaffa will keep an eye on the remaining snake head population, too.”

“What about the replicators? They're going to be our next big challenge.”

“Yes, but they will be whether you are big or little. Your work is done.”

“It’s done. I can get big again,” Daniel said slowly as though it was just beginning to sink in now. And somehow it was. 

He had craved this moment for so long, had lived for the very day when he’d be re-sized again. First it had been a desperate wish, something he had hoped for but not really believed possible as time had passed. Then, in Egypt, his wish had suddenly become a reality within reach. He had moved on with rekindled spirits in the knowledge he would one day get his life back. His real size. Be the person he used to be, sort off. 

It was still top on his priority list.

He just had to get used to the thought it would happen – hopefully - soon. 

BD gave him a little smile. “It's kind of mind boggling after all this time, huh?”

“I was scared of not being able to fulfill the prophecy. That I'd fail. It kind of pushed the issue of getting big again to the back burner.” Daniel returned the smile. “And now we're stuck here. Isn't that a scream?” 

“We’ll find a way home,” BD said, all confidence on the outside. 

“You bet we will,” Jack said from the bathroom door. He was only in his BDU pants, his t-shirt slung around his bare shoulders. There was grim determination on his face and in his voice. 

Daniel didn’t like the stoney look in his eyes. He hoped Jack and BD would feel better and less edgy once they had slept. 

The bathroom was a nice surprise even though Daniel found the shower system to be a bit weird. It wasn't unlike Earth showers, but instead of water they emitted some kind of warm steam. It didn't smell of anything, but definitely cleaned and was refreshing. It also dried fast enough that he didn't need a towel. And the facilities worked without Jack having to shower with them to keep the water... steam... running, which was a relief. 

Daniel wished there were appliances for laundry as he slipped back into his wrinkled clothes. He scrubbed his hands through his hair for lack of a hairbrush and left the small bathroom. 

Jack was sitting on the bed, redoing his boots. “Hey, space monkey,” he said with a grin that didn't reach his eyes. “Had a nice shower?”

“Yeah.” Daniel sat on the bed beside Jack, registering how soft and inviting it was.

Atlantis had been deserted for millions of years and there was no dust, no cobwebs – but the mattress of the bed was as good as new. Weird. Maybe everything down here was antistatic. And of course it had been underwater and shielded by a force field, so no spiders, mice or whatnot had been able to enter it. Not even fish or other creatures that lived under water. It had been sealed shut and was perfectly preserved. 

He looked around the sun flooded room. Any personal items that might have been here had been removed, probably gone with their owners when the Lantians had left to return to Earth. There was a mirror on the wall over a simple dresser. A group of white armchairs around a round glass coffee table actually reminded him of Ikea-style homes. 

“Nice quarters, eh?” Jack said. “Compared to the Ha'tak, it's like a first class hotel.”

“Yeah.” Now that they had settled down Daniel felt it hard to believe they were really in the Lost City. Had really come here. Not only that, but they had defeated Anubis. Even though he had failed to fight Ba'al in the beginning, they had fulfilled their destiny and they were all still alive. Earth was still there and whole and Daniel was grateful for it even though they were as far away from home as could be.

Jack had brought Daniel here to heal him because Aiyana could only shield him, but not change what Ba'al had done with the mind probe. Daniel knew Jack was mad at her and Oma for not helping them. That he didn't care much for their way of doing things. 

He felt the need to try and defend Aiyana. She had kept him sane and made sure he didn't come out of this with a scrambled brain. 

“Aiyana couldn't tell you to take me to Pegasus,” he said, knowing that was bugging Jack – among other things. 

“Yeah, whatever,” Jack replied with a scowl. 

“Look, the others would have stopped her had she approached you directly. I know you don't believe that, but it would have made things worse. I wish... I wish I could have told you how to heal me, but everything was so foggy at times,” Daniel tried to explain. “When Aiyana sent me to sleep I wasn't strong enough to tell you about Atlantis. I wanted to, but everything slipped away from me and you couldn't heal me yourself because of the bracelets working against you. Aiyana said not to waste my strength and that you would know what to do.”

For a second Daniel thought Jack was going to snap. His jaw tightened and his mouth turned into that hard, thin line again. But it was gone so fast that Daniel wondered if he had only imagined it. 

Jack patted his shoulder. “We made the right call and got you back. I really missed you, Wretchie.”

“Don't call me _Wretchie_ , Jack. That's gross.” Then he looked around the room again. “Where is BD?”

Jack waved at the panoramic window and Daniel realized that part of it was a doorway. “Out there. There's a balcony.” 

“Cool!” He wanted to take a look, but Jack caught him by the arm and held him back. 

“Let's give him some space there for a while, okay?”

Through the open door Daniel caught a glimpse of BD's still figure leaning against a banister of some kind. “Jack, what...”

But Jack shook his head. “He'll tell you if he thinks you need to know.”

“Did Ba'al...”

“Daniel, don't. Just this once, let it be, okay?” 

“I'm just worried,” Daniel whispered, taken aback by the pained look on Jack's face. 

“I know you are, kiddo. This is just something he might not want to share,” Jack said softly. “You have to respect that.”

“It's my fault,” Daniel said flatly.

“No. No, it's not your fault. I told you...” 

“He made him his Lo'taur.”

“Yes. _He_ made him his Lo'taur. Not you. And he would've done it no matter what. He was set on doing it the moment he laid eyes on him,” Jack said in the same soft voice, but with a firm undertone. 

“Will he be okay?” 

“Yeah, I think so. But you know how this goes, It'll take a while.”

Daniel balled his hands into fists, his whole body threatening to tremble with the sudden wave of cold anger. “I'm glad Ba'al is dead.”

Jack took his hands and squeezed them briefly. “Yes, me too. But it's over now and there's no need to obsess, okay?”

It took only one look at Jack for Daniel to know he wasn't the only one who was angry and while he was still on the peak of its wave he wanted to tell Jack off for patronizing him. But he swallowed it down, knowing his friend was right. 

“I won't obsess over it,” he said gravely. “It won't change anything.”

And that was the bitter truth after all.

“Good man,” Jack said with a crooked smile. “Why don't you get some sleep, hm?”

Daniel glanced over to where he could make out BD on the balcony, then he gave his guardian a long look. “Actually, I think it's you two who should get some sleep. I'd like to go and check out the Hologram room.”

**III**

_Ohhh, here we go._ Jack felt the headache that had been pestering him for the last hour or so, spike up a couple of notches. “No can do, Daniel. You're not going to walk around this place on your own and you're right. We all need some rest.”

Daniel frowned. “There's no one here but us. I won't go anywhere else, I promise.”

“We talked about this, remember?”

“Yes, but I'm not going to wander off. You know where I am and I'm not going elsewhere.”

“Yeah, well, that's what you always say and then you end up god knows where,” Jack groused. 

“That's not true,” Daniel blurted out.

“Recently your habit of wandering of has re-surfaced again,” Jack reminded him. The embarrassed blush rising in Daniel's cheeks was enough to make him come around a bit, though. “We'll check out the holo room later. I promise.”

“There's nothing dangerous here.” Daniel held up his hand. “I have the body shield, too.”

“And you know that – how? You have any idea how big this place is?” 

“I won't go anywhere else...”

“You won't go anywhere, period.”

“Jack...”

“No.”

Daniel, the child that had been unresponsive and close to death – again – for all Jack could tell, just three hours ago, pouted. “You'd know if something was up. Atlantis interfaced with your Ancient gene. It's safe.” 

Jack had been inclined to believe that a couple of hours ago. The city had welcomed him. He couldn't explain it, but it had been as though it embraced him like a family member coming home from a long journey. It had opened its doors for him and he'd thought it was cool. 

A bit strange, but cool.

And it had saved Daniel. Jack might have been the conductor by using his gene on the stasis pod, but it was Atlantis that had brought Daniel back to him. 

Then it had risen from the ocean all on its own, just upon sensing Jack's presence, and he'd been a bit overwhelmed by the sheer power. 

It was the discovering of the depleted power sources, however, and the realization they were stranded here that had changed things for Jack and opened another can of worms. They were trapped. He'd dealt with too many weird and dangerous alien doohickeys to believe it was a coincidence. And until something proved him wrong he had all kinds of reasons to believe Atlantis just wouldn't let them go.

Jackson had called it 'her'. _She_ was happy as a clam to have company after all this time. What if the city was sentient? 

He shook his head. Daniel wasn't going anywhere without Jack and Jack was tired and a bit cranky, so the kid had to suck it up and live with that for now. 

He couldn't ignore the glare or the pout though. 

“We're in another galaxy. There might be things hidden in this city we haven't got a clue about. There might be technology we can’t deal with, not even with the fancy gene or a body shield,” he said with more patience than he actually had left right now.

If this was going to lead into one of those discussions...

“I know that,” Daniel replied – probably with equally forced patience. “I'll take a radio and a Zat.”

“Daniel? Read my lips? N.O.” 

His final word on that issue.

Or so he'd thought. 

“Take me there,” the joy of Jack's life tried to compromise. “Please? I just can't sleep now. I've been asleep for so long. I just want to DO something useful. You could take me there and I'll stay there until you come and get me, I promise. Or you could just stay there with me, but you really shouldn't You should get some rest, Jack.”

Jack let himself fall backwards on the bed and slapped his hands over his face. “Daniel, please...” He wasn't going to take any chances of losing him somewhere here. No way. No how. 

“Maybe it knows where to find another power source.”

Jack sat up again, considering counting backwards from ten. Or twenty. “Yes, maybe it does. And you can ask it anything you want. Later.” 

Mini Daniel threw up his hands and snapped. “Why do you always have to be so damn paranoid!”

Paranoid was he now? He couldn't believe he'd gotten them here safe and alive only to be trapped in a freaking city with a consciousness. Wasn't it strange luck the power sources were just so empty that they couldn't go home, but worked well enough to keep the city functional?

Jack wasn't taking any chances. “I just want you to wait until we had time to threat asses...”

“There is no threat,” Daniel shouted. “Get that into your head!”

“The answer is no!” Jack was on his feet, trying to ignore the nail hammering into his head inch by inch with every movement. 

Daniel took a step backwards, rolling his eyes. He spun on his heels and strode in the general direction of the door. “Fine! Whatever! I got it. I'll just...”

It wasn't anything like the red haze of rage when he had shot Ba'al. It wasn't even just anger at being disobeyed. All of a sudden Jack just KNEW that the moment he'd let Daniel walk out that door the city was going to swallow him whole and Jack would lose him for good this time. 

It was an act of desperation. 

It took Jack three steps to catch up with the fast retreating brat. Grabbing him by the collar of his peaceful explorer hoodie he bellowed. “You. Will. Stay. Here.” Each word was punctuated by a swat to his jean-clad butt. That done, Jack let go of Daniel and pointed at the bed. “Don't make me repeat that order, Mister. Go to bed. Now.”

Daniel turned slowly around and stared at him, eyes big as saucers, his chest heaving with the enormous effort of keeping the sobs in. Or the yelling; which would only get him into further trouble. Jack braced himself for the storm of a full blown tantrum. He wasn't going to back down on this one. Even if he had to lock them all in to keep Indiana Jackson from leaving this room to get himself into god knew what kind of danger...

“I wasn't go... going to... leave,” Daniel spluttered, his breath hitching. 

“Oh, really? Where exactly _were_ you going?” Jack snapped, not buying it for a moment. 

“The bathroom.”

“How stupid do you think I actually am, Daniel?” 

Daniel's eyes widened even more and there was a warning voice in Jack's head telling him to stop. Right now. Telling him that he was screwing up big time here. But Jack slammed that voice down and jabbed a warning finger at his wayward kid. “I changed my mind. Remember how that time out thing works? You go to the bathroom NOW and stay there while you think about your attitude.”

In the matter of seconds Daniel's face flushed red. He balled his hands into fists and his whole body went rigid. And then as Jack waited for the inevitable outburst, all that rigidness just vanished like air from a balloon. 

Daniel let out a long trembling breath. “You should get some sleep, Jack.”

He slipped past Jack and then the bathroom door was shut quietly and locked from the inside.

_Oh, for crying out..._

Jack jammed thumb and forefinger of his right hand into his stinging eyes and cursed under his breath. 

“What just happened here?” The quiet voice coming from the balcony door bore no resentment, just some kind of stunned amazement. 

Jack opened his mouth, closed it without getting a word out. Finally he reverted to picking up where he'd stopped. “Just doing some family bonding. What does it look like to you?!” 

Jackson was moving across the room, towards him. 

“Just...” Jack held up a hand to keep him at bay. “Back off.”

He only needed a moment to get his act together. He'd take Daniel to that blasted holo room, later... to see if, for once, his damn-non-interference-loving Ancient friends were willing to help. 

***

Five minutes ago Daniel had been looking across the ocean, trying to make out any kind of land. Trying to figure out if there actually was land. There wasn't. Not in eyesight anyway. All there was was a wide blue infinity of ocean and skies, steeped in sunlight glistening on the water and reflecting in the windows and roofs of Atlantis' many spires. 

Atlantis was an island, completed perfection built by the Ancients so many millions of years ago, buried and unconscious like Sleeping Beauty at the bottom of the sea. 

Ba'al had been right. Jack had breathed life back into it. 

And Daniel was grateful, once again, for the fact that Ba'al had never had a chance to set foot in the city. Never would have that chance. 

This place felt like no evil would ever be allowed to enter Atlantis. As though she was protecting everything and everyone inside her from harm.

He knew that wasn't true. After all, the Ancients had left because of an enemy trying to conquer the city. But then, the enemy had never actually made it in, right? 

Maybe it was just what he had to believe right now because he needed something to hold on to. Needed to think Atlantis was safe and pure. That they weren't stranded here forever or falling into the hands of that ominous enemy the kid had told them about. 

And that, even if they were never able to go home again, Atlantis would offer them shelter and possibilities to go on instead of being a trap. That they hadn't come all this way, just to be defeated now. 

Or maybe he just wanted to be able to put his faith in believing that Atlantis would somehow help them to... to get past of what Ba'al had done. Not just to him, but to all of them. 

Five minutes ago Daniel had considered all this as he'd felt the warm sun on his face and the light breeze playing in his hair, grateful for the fresh air and salt on his lips.

When the yelling inside had begun he'd been startled out of his musings, and as he had watched the drama unfold, he had realized how thin the layer of self control and keeping up the tenacity to go on was for all of them. How they were hanging on by a thread, trying not to lose what was left of their sanity. 

“Just... back off,” Jack told him harshly as Daniel started towards him. 

Daniel stopped moving, the bed between them like a buffer, as he considered the huge invisible 'handle with care' sign on Jack's forehead. 

“I'm going to put a leash on that kid,” Jack shouted. “He's not back from the brink of death for a day and already trying to get into some kind of trouble again. And don't tell me this place is safe because it got us stuck here and there's no way that's a coincidence!”

“You think Atlantis depleted the power sources to keep us here?” Daniel asked. He had considered that possibility briefly, but... “I think you're over reacting.” Unless... “Did you get any vibes from the city, indicating it's holding us here against our will?”

Jack threw up his hands. “No-o! But I have no reason to believe otherwise! Wouldn't be the first time some wacky alien intelligence is trying to mess with us!”

“There's one way to find out. Try deepening the connection. Try to... focus,” Daniel suggested, but realized it wasn't going to work as long as Jack was so riled up. “Maybe later, when you had some sleep,” he added.

Jack went on as though he hadn't heard a word Daniel had said. “I'm not going to let Daniel lose to stick his nose into every corner and touch god knows what until we've threat assessed at least part of the place.” 

“He wasn't going to leave,” Daniel said, deliberately keeping his voice quiet in contrast to Jack's yelling. “Not after you told him off.” 

“He was going to walk out that door...”

“He wasn't. And you know it. But that's okay, he'll get over it. And he's right, Jack. You keep telling us to get some rest while you keep going on until you crash and burn.”

“I can't sleep. Someone has to make sure the two of you don’t go exploring and get lost,” Jack snapped, turning his back on Daniel. 

“Are you listening to yourself? Will you just...”

“I'm fine!”

“Actually, I really don't think you are,” Daniel said.

He moved around the bed and stepped up to Jack, close enough to feel him bristle, almost ready to erupt. 

“Let me...,” Daniel started, but was cut off. 

“Don't.” It could have been a threat or a plea, Daniel wasn't sure, but he wasn't going to let that stop him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. Then, as soon as the words had left his mouth, Daniel realized what part of the issue might be. “You’re blaming yourself.” 

When Jack’s back stiffened, Daniel knew he had hit the nail on the head.

“I'm here to protect him. It's my god damn job to keep him safe,” Jack spat and Daniel knew he wasn't just talking about Atlantis, but about everything that had happened over the last couple of days. 

“And you can't live through losing another child again, I know,” Daniel said softly. “We've been waiting for Anubis to show up all this time... but there was no way of knowing how it was going down. That prophecy only gave us bits and pieces. We couldn't possibly have protected him from somehow being involved in this. Not you, not me... none of us could have seen this coming the way it did. Ba'al screwed with all our heads. There was nothing we could do.”

Jack finally spun around. “Oh, look who's talking, Doctor I was-in-control Jackson,” he scoffed, bitterness oozing from every word. 

Daniel sucked in a breath, blindsided by the brutal impact of the words thrown at him. He replied on auto pilot, not willing to make himself the subject of this conversation. “I'm not the issue right now.”

“Yes! You're exactly the issue! The issue is the two of you driving me NUTS!” Jack hollered. “The issue is that I can't...” He snapped his mouth shut, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “I told you to back off!” 

“No.”

“No? What do you mean; no?!” Jack glared at him, his face stoney, eyes almost as black as Ba'al's had been. Only there was no lust or cruelty in them, just anger and pain. So much raw pain, all bottled up until now

Daniel shook his head. “Sorry, Jack, that's not going to happen. You can hit me, too, if it makes you feel better, but you won't send me to the bathroom to think about my attitude.”

The color drained from Jack's face, leaving him looking sick and distraught. He balled his hands into fists, the picture of barely contained self control. “What do you want from me? I screwed up, I know that. I do that. Go, take him to the damn hologram...just...” It was in his eyes now, all over his face, Daniel could see it.

_Leave me the hell alone._

*******

He wasn't going to lose it.

No fucking way. 

But Jack could feel himself slipping, his walls crumbling, as the headache rose to new heights; a constant pounding behind his left eye. 

He clenched his hands into fists as he boiled on the inside with something that was more than just anger. Worse than the red hot haze; something dark and self destructive that wanted out. Had wanted to worm its way up from his aching guts ever since he'd seen Ba'al's hologram in the briefing room. Ever since Jack had had to watch Little Daniel slip away under the influence of the Ancient crap flooding his brain. Ever since Ba'al had gotten his hands on Big Daniel... 

Jack hadn't been fit to handle this very well; had made himself an easy target for Ba'al's mind games and gloating. Had let his emotions take over and shoot the snake, had let himself be goaded into attacking Ba’al in his cell later – If Teal'c hadn't been there... 

_Oh, no, don't go there_ , he ordered himself. 

“Jack, talk to me,” Jackson said urgently, his voice reaching Jack through the fog of his surfacing need to go off like a nuke, just to get this out of his system. He'd screwed up enough already, he didn't need to make this any worse.

Except now that he’d started he was having a hard time stopping himself from lashing out at the very two people he had wanted to protect. 

And if he went on like this he'd go downhill – fast. 

“It was a very bad day,” Jack ground out. “Nothing to talk about.” 

Oh, he'd been close to this point before.

The point where falling to pieces, shattering, was a real, freaking possibility. 

Only, Jack O'Neill didn't do that. He'd been close, yes, sometimes closer than he liked to admit. But he'd be damned if he was going to have a pathetic break down here and now. He had to take his hate and his guilt and bury it somewhere. He had to focus on getting them away from here. Home. It was what he did. What he had to do. 

Jackson's gaze was on him, so full of understanding, like he was reading Jack's mind. Their eyes met for a brief moment as Jack struggled for control.

_Get your act together._

But he couldn't. Not when his eyes were drawn to that hickey on Jackson's throat, a purplish red mark; a witness of his failure. 

One of many.

Too many.

Jack shook his head when Jackson took another step towards him. “Just... go.” 

“I'm not leaving.” 

“Fine. I am.” Jack brushed past him, shouldering him out of the way, He stalked to the door, jerked it open and welcomed the semi darkness of the dim lit corridor.

***

Daniel was left in his wake, torn between the strong need to go after Jack, and giving him what he wanted. Let him take a couple of deep breaths, pull himself together again. Daniel knew if he gave him ten minutes, Jack was going to close up into himself, make up with LD, take him to the hologram and work out a way to guarantee their survival one way or another.

Because it was what Jack did best. 

But Jack was like a kettle under pressure, ready to erupt. Something had to give and Daniel was ready to be the lightning conductor and take the blow. Yet, he understood the need for solitude better than anyone, the need for crawling into a corner to lick wounds.

 _Five_ , he thought, _I'm giving you five, then I'm going after you._

He glanced at the closed bathroom door, gave himself a mental push and knocked. 

When there was no reply, Daniel moved the doorknob. It was still locked. “Daniel?” he called tentatively. “Are you okay in there?”

*******

Little Daniel bit the inside of his cheek, tightened his arms around his body and squeezed his eyes shut as he leaned against the closed door. 

_Are you okay in there?_

Yeah, sure, great. He was having the time of his life. 

Rubbing his still slightly stinging rear he sighed and went back to sit on the closed lid of the john, musing over the fact that he was on another planet, in the Lost City of the Ancients – and stuck in a bathroom that could have been anywhere on Earth. Bathrooms were probably bathrooms everywhere unless the physical appearance of the aliens was vastly different from theirs.

Time outs were always a pain in the mikta. Time outs in bathrooms were exceptionally boring, especially if there was no window. The last time he'd been forced to sit in a bathroom was in Egypt. At home or on base, on the rare occasions he had to do time outs these days, he often had Flyboy to keep him company and Jack was never far, always there when Daniel's time was up and he was ready to act civilized again. 

Thinking of his dog almost undid him and he pressed his lips tightly together as he rubbed his eyes, trying not to bawl like a baby. 

He hated time outs, period. Usually he deserved them, though. This time, not so much.

 _Oh, really,_ a tiny but persistent voice nagged at him. _How unfair of him. Especially since you were so nice and considerate not to push it._

“Shut up,” he muttered to himself. 

He had just wanted to help. To be useful for a change, since he'd spent most of this mission in some kind of mental nirvana. Yeah, sure, he had talked Jack through some rough spots regarding Ancient technology. He had built the matter streamer and given them the gate address to Taonas. Yet, Daniel felt like everyone had fought Ba'al and suffered, while he had been cut off from them.

So he had wanted to do something and gotten smacked for his efforts. 

It wasn't fair. He wasn't some petulant brat. Okay, he was, sometimes. But he hadn't meant to be one there. He'd just somehow... ignored the warning signs. 

He still believed that talking to the hologram was important. But as so often happened, he had been focused on his idea so much that he'd got carried away.

He sighed. What he hated the most about time outs was how they forced him to take a good look at his actions, because he couldn't stop thinking and he never managed to sulk his way through more than ten minutes before he felt ridiculous for the mere act of sulking. Unless he was right, of course.

Which he was now.

Still..

As much as Daniel believed it hadn't been fair and that he didn't deserve those smacks, he couldn't bring himself to stay mad now. He’d known Jack had been walking on the edge already, and he should have just dropped it. 

Yet, he was kind of glad that he was in here and not out there. 

Maybe he should be glad it wasn't an Asgard bathroom. Those were probably even more boring. Did the Asgard have bathrooms? Did they actually have a digestive system? Maybe they never even ate? Then he remembered Sam telling him the Asgard ate awful tasting colorful cubes. 

Daniel rolled his eyes at his own wandering thoughts. 

But if he stopped distracting himself he'd have to face the fact that his parental unit and his grown-up self had had a row right on the other side of the door. And that Jack had just left in a huff. 

For once Daniel didn't want to get in the middle of it, intuitively knowing that he was only going to make this worse if he tried to apologize or intervene now. 

He had to leave this one to BD. 

“Daniel?” BD's voice from the other side of the door.

Daniel wiped a hand across his face, despising the wetness he felt there. “I'm fine,” he called out, glad his voice didn't tremble. “Go after him.”

***

Jack knew one of the Daniels was going to come looking for him, sooner or later.

He hoped it was going to be later. Jackson knew better than to corner him and so did the kid...

God, Jack couldn't believe he'd spanked him. He’d thought they were past that. He could almost see Svenson's disapproving little frown.

What the hell was wrong with him? Why couldn't he get a grip on this rage surging through him? Jack was well aware that Daniel's little tantrum had only been the trigger, not the cause for his own outburst. 

He was getting old. Unfit. Staying home playing dad hadn't done him any good; he'd been out of the field too long. The last two and a half years had had left their mark on him, scarred him, brought him to his limits a couple of times. And every single time it had happened, every time Jack had gotten too close to breaking down, it had centered around one of the Daniels

Big or little, it didn't matter.

They'd never made it easy for him with their tendency to get into peril in order to do the right thing, the noble thing, the... whatever it was they had to do at the time they were doing it. But Jack had tried. Tried to be a CO, a best friend, a safeguard, a lover, a father... he'd been challenged time and again, either by one of the Daniels or by circumstances and missions.

But he'd never stopped trying.

Only, it was never enough. 

Never enough to keep them from getting hurt one way or another. And if it wasn’t fate kicking their guts, Jack managed to screw up somehow. 

When he heard the footsteps behind him, he closed his eyes briefly, wishing he could have hidden out here for a while longer. 

*******

Daniel spotted him around the next corner where the corridor opened into a gallery with an open view into the gate room. Jack stood there, motionless, hands tightly gripping the balustrade. 

The stained glass windows filtered the daylight, letting it through in soft mystically yellow, green and orange. Once more Daniel noticed the resemblance to a cathedral as he stepped beside Jack. 

“You told the kid none of this is his fault. It's not your fault either. Stop beating yourself up for things you had no control over,“ Daniel said quietly into the heavy silence that seemed to fill every space, taking away the air to breath. 

“That coming from you is like... glasshouses and stones? Pot and kettle?” Jack replied sourly, dark eyes fixed on the gate below them.

“I know. I'm going to try and take my own advice for a change,” Daniel said lightly. When there was no reply, he leaned over the banister, gazing at the floor two levels down. The lamps along the gateway were lit, the gate hopper was still hovering in front of the gate. 

Taking a deep breath, Daniel decided to go first. “Okay. Okay, you're right. I wasn't in control of the whole Ba'al situation. Not really, not all the way. And you told me not to play it down. You were right about that, too. You said I have to face it. Fine. I am. I will. He could have screwed me and killed me... and the fact I got hard and was encouraging him doesn't change the fact that what he did was rape.”

The steam shower had washed off any physical traces of Ba'al, but his looming presence was still lingering like cobwebs in the corners of Daniel's mind. 

“Good for you,” Jack said. “Now you just have to believe it.” 

“I will, eventually, I just need you to keep telling me.”

“Like you'll keep telling me there wasn't anything I could have done?” It was said with a sardonic little smirk that held no humor.

“What do you think you could have done, Jack?” 

“Take more backup with us? One more team might have been enough to get that ship under control without having to kill the bastard.”

“You don’t know that. For all we knew Ba’al ship was a beehive of Jaffa. And Hammond wasn’t authorized to give you anymore backup.”

When there was no reply, Daniel went on, “Ba'al raked us over the coals. All three of us. I know that, despite the fact you aren't responsible, you won't just stop _feeling_ responsible for anything that happened. Or anything you couldn't prevent from happening. Just like I won't stop feeling...” dirty for leading Ba'al on even though that was exactly what he'd intended to do. “the way I feel about Ba'al,” he ended lamely. 

“No,” Jack ground out, his voice hoarse and brittle. “Probably not.”

“But this, too, will pass,” Daniel said. 

“I can't... go on like this,” Jack said flatly.

The words were hanging between them, even more grueling than the silence earlier and Daniel felt cold all of a sudden. He'd seen Jack down before. But never, not once, this defeated. Not since Abydos. 

“Yes,” Daniel said sharply. “Yes, you can. Actually, you have to. What happened to Mister Positive, Colonel O'Neill?” 

“He's left the building.”

“You're beat and guilt ridden. Not a good combination, believe me; I know.”

“No, you don't get it.” Jack turned to look at him for the first time. “I can't go on always having to worry about losing you. Always worrying I screw up and you'll be... gone. Both of you.”

“If anything ever happens to us it won't be your fault,” Daniel said, meaning every word of it. 

“I was sure he's going to die,” Jack said, the words coming clipped and jarring. “Wasn't the first time, but the worst. Seeing him like that. Fading. Knowing what that Ancient stuff did to him.”

“It's all right,” Daniel said soothingly. “He's okay now.” 

“That damn Ancient bitch wouldn't tell us about Atlantis. If Ba'al hadn't spilled... if that bastard hadn’t told you... That SOB...” Jack raised a hand and, with trembling fingertips, touched the hickey on Daniel's throat, tracing its nasty outlines. “Couldn't be there,” he ground out. “He locked me away and I... I should have been there. God, Daniel, I can't stand knowing what he did to you and I wasn't there.”

Daniel expected Jack's caressing would throw him into another memory flashback of Ba'al, but it never happened. The rough, yet, tender touch of Jack's fingers was like cool balm soothing the bruised skin. 

“You were there the whole time. When Ba'al did... what he did... you got me through that, Jack. Memories. I have so many good memories of us. They're stronger than Ba'al.” 

And as he said that he realized it was true. Even after all this time, those memories kept going strong. He had not allowed himself to dwell or wallow in them since he had traveled back in time, but if he was honest with himself and stripped away all those layers of self defense, carefully placed denial and reasonable thinking...when he looked at himself bare off all those shields, he had never stopped being Jack's. 

As much as Jack had never stopped being Daniel's. 

“I wanted to blow off his damn face, wanted to see him bleed. I wanted to make him pay,” Jack said bitterly. “I killed him.”

“I know. You shot him.”

‘”No. I killed him. I lost control and I just... killed him.”

***

“You believe you activated the Goa'uld trap.” There was no accusation, no shock. Just Jackson's gentle voice. “That's it, isn't it? What's tearing you apart. You think you killed him, knowing we needed him to get rid of the bracelets.”

 _Ya think?_ Jack thought, angrily, finally acknowledging that underneath all the agonizing worrying for the Daniels and the horror of what they had gone through, there was something else.

Something disgusting, chipping away at him, edging into his guts like a knife that was twisted over and over again. 

He couldn't stand what Ba'al had done to Jackson – but not just because Ba'al had abused him. That had been the most pressing reason, yes. But apart from that... Jack had been fighting this little fact for a while now; it was slowly but surely poisoning him. A possessive part in him wanted to re-claim Jackson, take away Ba'al's dirty disgusting mark and replace it with his own. 

Jackson was his. Belonged to him. Not like a prize or a trophy, but like the other side of a coin. They were tied to one another by a bond stronger than anything Jack had ever known, despite the fact they had huge issues with that bond and anything connected to it. 

No one _dare_ get between them. 

And yes, while he was at it, he had wanted to beat the crap out of Fergus too for a while. 

And he hated himself almost as much for being such a selfish dick as he hated Ba'al for being a perverted bastard. 

“Ba'al wouldn't have spilled,” Jackson said, matter-of-factly. “And in the end we figured it out without him.”

“Not the point,” Jack hissed, wanting to pull away, but his hand was suddenly caught and held in place by Jackson's, still covering the taunting bruise where Ba'al had bit and sucked.

Jack had made him pay for it. 

It had been a slip.

A second of being off-guard, a single piercing thought, nothing more. It had been easy to push the fact out of the way for a while; to think the Goa'uld trap would have gone off either way, sensing the snake's presence... but Jack had triggered it in a moment of careless hate that stood out to him crystal clear. 

And he'd jeopardized his son's safety by doing it. Had let his feelings take over again for his selfish needy little reasons. 

“It was a trap. It would have been triggered either way. To prevent a Goa'uld from getting his hands on the ship or the weapon. Has it ever occurred to you that this trap was put in there for Anubis, should he ever have found this outpost? It makes sense because he's the only Goa'uld able to work Ancient technology,” Jackson said. “Your only fault in killing him was to activate the chair, which automatically set off the trap.” 

“I wanted him dead. God, I wanted him dead the moment I knew what he did to Daniel. It only got worse after he messed with _you_.”

A hell of a lot worse. 

“Even if you triggered it unconsciously – in the end we didn't need him. And if it helps; I wanted him dead as much as you did.”

“Daniel could have died. You both could have died out here if we hadn’t figured out how to remove those things, and you got separated for some reason,” Jack said. 

It didn’t matter that they had figured out how to remove the bracelets on their own. What mattered was that Jack had lost control. And it hadn’t been the first time during this hell of a mission. He’d been compromised in the worst possible way. If he couldn’t clamp down on feelings like jealousy and anger, yes even worrying, in a situation like this, he wasn’t doing his job and some day it could get them killed.

“We didn't.” Jack felt Daniel's fingers tightening around his. 

“Daniel...” He wasn't willing to be talked out of his self-loathing or the fact that he had fucked up. 

“Shh... I know.” 

Jackson let go of his hand and was suddenly moving, too fast for Jack to realize what was coming and then he was grabbed and hugged hard, almost brutally. He struggled, trying to get free, but he was stuck, his back pressing against the balustrade as Jackson's arms wound around him. 

Jack clutched at Jackson's shirt with both hands, not sure if he wanted to pull him even closer or push him away. Not sure if he wanted to kiss him or punch him to get away from him. 

Like that they stood, both waiting for the other one to move, every muscle, every tendon tense and stiff, their eyes locked only inches away from each other. Jack felt his heart hammering against his ribs, felt Daniel's heart thudding in the same tune.

“You'd never risk Daniel's life, Jack. Not if your own life depended on it. You might not believe it, but you're a better man than that.” 

“That's where you're wrong.” Jack wanted to draw back, but was blocked by the balustrade behind him and a human rock in front and around him.

“No. He's your... your everything. You'd never, not ever, do anything that might hurt him.” And after a pause, he added softly, “or me.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You're an ass at times. Stubborn, bossy and tactless, yes. You're wrong a lot, while we're right...”

“Daniel...” Jack growled.

“...but you wouldn't allow any of your... less endearing traits to get the better of you where it really counts. I know this. LD knows this, too. That's why we put up with you, after all.” It was said teasingly, with a smile tugging at his mouth, but Jack could hear the honesty in it, the utter confidence; the trust Jack so often thought he didn't deserve. 

“There's no point going off the deep end because of Ba'al. LD and I need you to order us around, to nag and whine at us – it's how we work best on finding a way out of here,” Jackson said. “And then you can take all the credit for getting us home.” 

“Shut up,” Jack groaned on the edge of a laugh or a cry, he didn't know which. He felt inside out, all over the place and he hated it. 

It was Christmas all over again and he felt out of sorts being so raw and open. 

He had the choice to continue raving and kicking a wall or giving in to Daniel’s offer of comfort – whether Jack felt he deserved it or not. 

He loosened his grip on Jackson's shirt, pulled his hands out from between them. His trembling arms found their way around the solid body, hugging him back with all his might. 

Jackson winced and stiffened, causing Jack to loosen his hold. “Daniel?” 

“It’s okay... I’ve got, ah,... a souvenir...”

“What?! Another one?” Jack snarled. 

“We tried to wipe the floor with each other, remember? He had throwing sticks in his quarters, ancient Egyptian weapon to hunt birds. You throw them into the air and try to pierce a bird. Anyway...”

“ _Daniel_ ,” Jack sighed. “TMI?”

“He hit my back, I hit his dick,” Jackson said with a shrug. Then he dropped his chin on Jack’s shoulder. “Don’t let go. Just...” 

Jack put his arms back where they belonged, his hands creeping under Jackson’s shirt, feeling a large swelling just above the waistband of his jeans. He smoothed his palm over it, too wiped out to give glowing energy, but in the hope of giving comfort now that he was allowed to touch again. 

He felt Daniel sigh with relief as they relaxed, mellowing into each other, chest to chest, Jack's face in Daniel's hair, Daniel's lips brushing Jack's ear, whispering, “Ego amare, Jack.” 

_I love you._

Jack was a little more anchored by the strength of their hug. He felt a little less like the floor was pulling away under his feet. Yet, at the same time something inside him burst like a dam. Maybe it was the damn Ancient gene still messing with his defenses, he had no clue.

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, refusing to give in to tears without a fight even now as they were dampening Daniel's hair and as Jack felt a wet patch on the shoulder where Daniel's face was. 

***

Little Daniel bit his lip and slowly, slowly retreated back into the darker part of the corridor. He wasn't sure how long he'd been standing there, drawn in by the sight of the two of them holding on to each other for dear life.

He had snuck out the bathroom, his worries and curiosity stronger than his vow to stay out of this, and found them like this. 

He was sure there were tears, even though he couldn't hear anything but the occasional choking breath. He could see BD's back trembling as Jack was rubbing his large hands up and down, soothingly but agitated, not his usual tower of strength and confidence.

Daniel had seen Jack cry before on very far and few occasions. They had seen each other at their worst – before and after the downsizing. 

The reason it was so disturbing was probably the fact that Jack didn't cry unless he was not just down, but close to his breaking point. And Daniel hated the thought that he...and BD...were Jack's breaking points. That Jack was so torn, so out of it, because of them.

But then, Jack was their breaking point, too. Daniel remembered how helpless and in despair he had been every single time Jack's life had been in danger. How close to completely losing it he'd been when Jack and BD had been stuck on Anubis's ship around Abydos and everyone had thought they were dead. 

It was probably part of loving someone so much. 

Daniel had done a lot of crying since he’d been shrunk. He knew a lot about tears and how hard it was to keep them inside when things got really rough. This being a kid again business had ripped away parts of his defense mechanisms and it had taken a long time to build new ones – or to accept that some of them just didn't work anymore. What he had learned, though, was that crying sometimes helped to cope with stuff. It washed everything out of you and left you drained, but ready to go on. 

And Jack of all people had always told him it was okay to cry. Had always encouraged him to let it out. Had, on occasions, forced it out of him just knowing Daniel needed a good cry to get something out of his system. 

It was Jack's turn to let it all out now and BD had helped him to get there. 

It was their abyss and Daniel felt strangely disconnected from them. He had been with them the whole time, but Aiyana had protected him up to a point and maybe if Jack had known about that then, he wouldn't have been so out of his mind with worry. 

Why hadn't he been able to tell Jack he had to go to Pegasus? It had been like something hadn't wanted him to share. Maybe he wasn't supposed to know how to find Atlantis? Maybe they weren't supposed to be here? What if Oma had only meant for them to kill Anubis, but never to leave the Milky Way? But she had given him all this knowledge for a reason, hadn't she? Maybe she had given him stuff that wasn't meant for him to access – and Ba'al had pulled it all out. But if she didn't want him to access Atlantis, why had she given it to him in the first place? 

He was somehow missing the point here, but he couldn't figure it out. 

Daniel jerked off his glasses and wiped an angry hand across his stinging eyes. 

He wanted to go back to the bathroom and give them the privacy they needed. But he was rooted to the spot and, as he watched them, Jack and BD seemed to be far away, the distance from inside the corridor to where they were standing so vast. They were so tightly locked onto each other, and Daniel wasn't going to destroy the moment, but he couldn't help the pang of feeling alone – and very small.

It was Jack who raised his head and looked at him over BD's shoulder. 

Daniel tried to make a fast retreat. He shouldn't be here. He knew he'd get his own hugs later; that Jack was going to make up with him. But here and now this was their time and he shouldn't...

“Danny,” Jack said softly, his voice clogged. “I'm sorry.”

BD turned around to look at him, too.

“I...” Daniel took a step back, shaking his head. “It's okay. I'll just go back in there.”

“C'mere.” Jack reached out, beckoning him over.

“Daniel?” BD, still holding on to Jack with one arm, stepped aside and opened a gap.

A gap just big enough for Daniel to run over and squeeze in there between them and feel their arms coming around him, holding him just as tightly as they did each other. 

“BD is right you know?” Daniel looked up at Jack from where he was wedged between them like in a nest, sheltered and safe. “It doesn't matter why Ba'al died. He's gone. That's good.” 

Jack cupped his face, brushing away something from his eye. “You been there long?” He raised a questioning eyebrow.

Daniel blushed a little, but confessed. “Long enough to know I'd rather not know the details.” 

“Thank you,” BD said quietly. “I’d rather forget about it.”

“When we get home...,” Jack said after a moment. 

“Good,” BD said. 

“What?”

“You said 'when', not 'if'.”

“Whatever... I'm going to retire.”

“Doesn't work for you.” BD shrugged. 

“Getting too old for this crap.”

“No, you're not,” Daniel said firmly. “You can always become general and fly a desk.”

“Yeah? Who in his right mind would want to make me general?” Jack asked.

“I would.” Then something BD had said earlier struck Daniel and he looked up at the two of them. “We're stronger than what Ba'al did,” he said. “We're stronger than anything Ba'al could ever have done to us.” 

“Yeah,” BD said with a weak grin. “We are.”

“'Cause we have brains, courage and hearts,” Jack said, already trying to be flippant again, to get them to move to safer ground, away from the abyss.

Daniel snorted. “Hail Dorothy.”

And they all burst out into freeing spurts of laughter mingled with a few fresh tears.

**IV**

They had moved to the bed and sat there, their backs propped against the headboard. Jack was fast asleep between them. He'd been out of it as soon as they settled down, which spoke volumes about how exhausted he was. 

Daniel realized he had his hand in Jack's hair, playing with the short strands. He pulled it away and gave little-him a sheepish look.

LD lowered his eyes to Jack's slumbering form, a melancholic little smile on his face. “Remember how you kept telling us you were going to leave once I was big again? How you went on about not wanting to be in our way and that you'd move as far away as possible so that there weren't going to be two of us?”

Daniel's stomach gave a painful lurch. Yes, he remembered that. And despite the promise he'd given Jack on Christmas he sometimes wished he could still stick to that plan. Because either way one of them would get hurt in the process of sorting all this out. 

As though he had read his thoughts, LD went on, “Seems it's the other way around now. I'm going to be the one having to stay away. If I am going to lose all the memories of being little-me... if that happens... I'm going to want him back, you know.”

“He's... rightfully yours. I always respected that, you know. So did he.”

“He's as much yours as he's mine,” LD said softly.

“Umm, but that would be kind of...”

“...awkward, yeah, I know.”

“Maybe your subconscious will know what happened and your feelings for him will have changed...” Daniel started, but LD cut him off. 

“Yours didn't. You don't remember being little and you love him the same way I used to love him. And you only went with Fergus because you and Jack thought being together isn't fair to me. You were trying to protect my feelings, nothing else.”

“It was a bit more complicated than that,” Daniel murmured, but they both knew that was exactly what they had done. Tried to do anyway. Yet.... “I got re-sized under very different circumstances. We returned from Egypt and didn't waste much time. We didn't believe Pierson and his prophecy, because I - big me - hadn't been there to convince us. You know I got big almost a whole year earlier than you. I never had so many good experiences. I never met Al, I never did some of the things you did. Jack and I were still in the middle of trying to adjust to the childhood thing. It might be different for you, despite not remembering it.” 

At least that's what he hoped would happen. 

LD tilted his head, giving Daniel a thoughtful look. “Maybe. But we won't know that until it happens. There’s going to be one too many of us. It always comes down to that.”

 _Not if things stay as they are now_ , Daniel thought and hated how simple the solution seemed to be, hated how he wished the kid would choose against growing up. He’d rather bite off his tongue than say something, though. He had a very clear understanding how Little-him’s mind worked. And the last thing he wanted was LD making a sacrifice he might regret. 

Unless...

He gave his small counterpart a covert glance. Could it be...?

LD had always wanted them to become friends, had always wanted them to be this... family. 

Why?

Because he wanted them both to be happy? Or because there was another reason underneath all this... probably not right away, but constantly growing, maybe even without LD being fully aware of that reason? 

_Ego amare, tatae... I love you, daddy._

It had slipped out from LD's subconscious under the influence of the Ancient knowledge. Was this what he really wanted? And was the kid even aware he had said those words? Like when Jack had first given away his feelings for Daniel when he'd carried the Ancient repository?

Daniel remembered it as though it had happened yesterday. How Jack had been sitting in his office, stripped off his precious bravado and plunged into confusion and vulnerability. How Jack had looked at Daniel, his eyes wide open and soft, as he had said those words. 

_Tactus? Tu?... Touch you?_

How Jack's hand had caressed Daniel's cheek, a finger wandering down to rest on his lips. 

_Venustas... adorabilis...mei Daniel...Beautiful...charming...my Daniel._

Jack stirred and let out a soft snore as he turned to his right side, pulling Daniel out of his strange musings. 

“Are you gonna be okay?” LD asked.

“I’m gonna be okay,” he confirmed. And he believed that now. It might take a while to get there, but the hole Ba’al had ripped inside him was already starting to close.

He glanced at his young counterpart once more; the solemn look on the boy’s face way too mature for the brat he so often appeared to be. 

_We're stronger than anything Ba'al could ever have done to us._

Yes, they were. Maybe not because they had brains, courage and hearts... but because they had each other. Could always rely on each other. 

But whatever Little Daniel’s thoughts on getting big again really were – it was his choice, and his alone, and Daniel wasn’t going to touch this with a ten foot pole. 

He reached out and ruffled LD's hair the way Jack usually did. 

***

Jack rolled on his back and cracked one eye open, not sure what had woken him. The first thing he saw was Jackson sitting there, gazing down at him, a smile softening his features. 

“Hey,” Jack croaked, still tired and almost ready to go straight back to sleep. 

“Hey.” 

Jack sat up slowly and scrubbed both hands through his hair. Daniel was curled up by his other side, fast asleep. Jack reached out and carefully pulled his glasses off. He folded them and handed them to Jackson who put them on the small nightstand.

Jack stretched. God, he was still beat. A look at his watch confirmed he had only slept for an hour. 

“What do you think you're doing?” Big Daniel asked with a frown when Jack was about to get up. 

“Keeping watch so you can go to sleep.”

“Jack, there's no need...”

“You don't know that.” But he said it with much less bite than earlier. Just his usual paranoia about alien environments. 

“Can't you feel it? This place is... good.” Daniel said, flailing his hands to underline his words. “Shouldn't you get that? After all you're the one communicating with it.”

Jack sighed. Right about now he didn't get anything but waves of exhaustion.

Jackson slipped off the bed and beckoned Jack to follow him. “C'mon, I want to show you something.” 

Reluctantly, Jack followed him out onto the balcony and couldn't help but feel drawn to stepping up to the banister. There was sunlight and water and blue everywhere. Nothing else. Except for the towers of the damn city all around them; an architectural dream of shiny anthracite and silver. 

“This is an island in the middle of nowhere. It's a trap,” Jack blurted out. Yet, he couldn't take his eyes off the scenery. A flock of birds, too far away to make out their shape or sizes, soared across the sky, black against the bright sun. 

“No, it isn't a trap, Jack. It's peaceful. For the first time since Ba'al had me spreading my legs for him I feel... better. It's a good place. Can't you feel it?”

 _You're feeling better because you poured as much snot and tears out over me as I did over you_ , he thought, but didn't say it. 

“What if I can't get us home,” he blurted out instead, refusing to give in to the temptation of sunshine, the sound of seagulls or whatever those birds were, and the gentle rolling waves splashing against the piers deep down at the foot of the spires. 

“We'll find a way,” Jackson said. “And even on the off chance we don't and have to stay here we'll make it work. We always do.”

Jack looked at his Big Daniel; the tousled hair, the mobile eyebrows which were as much part of his talking as his hands, eyes as blue as the ocean beneath them, the pink tip of his tongue as it came out to lick the salt off those lush lips. 

“You'd like that, would you? Staying here?” Jack wasn't sure how he felt about that. 

“I'd miss home.” 

“But?” 

“Right now, in this moment, I wouldn't mind staying here, no.” Jackson turned and gazed at him, not smiling but calm and relaxed in a way Jack hadn't seen him in a while. “Because I believe we all need a break. From everything, to recharge.”

“What about food? Toothbrushes?” Jack sniffed at his armpit and grimaced. “Clothes?” He felt a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Coffee. You and the Wretch won't last a week without coffee.”

“We have food for a week. Maybe we can wear our clothes under that steam shower thing. We'll survive without coffee...”

“Toilet paper?” Jack waggled his eyebrows knowing it annoyed him, but doing it anyway.

Jackson stared at him. “Ah... there's a bidet in that bathroom.”

“Yeah, a steam bidet.”

“It worked with the shower. The steam thing. And you're just trying to change the subject,” Jackson said with a frown. 

“The subject being...?”

“You don’t have to keep watch. I want you to open up to Atlantis and make a real connection. To feel what I feel. What LD feels. What we can sense even without having the gene.” He sounded determined, his eyes boring into Jack's, trying to make him agree by sheer will. 

He was good at that, his Daniel. 

Jack sighed. It was so hard to resist him. Them. Both of them. Always had been. He'd learned to be careful, not to trust alien technology. Then again he had also learned there was bad and good out there. He'd always been on the wary side about distinguishing the good from the bad. And it was Daniel who'd often enough made Jack see the good where he'd been suspicious. 

He wasn't so paranoid anymore now that he'd had let off some steam and slept for a bit. He was still tired, he still felt drained from the emotional roller coaster and he was still chewing a bit on the guilt thing, somehow. But Jackson had been right. It happened and they’d gotten rid of the stupid bracelets on their own. It wasn’t like Jack had never screwed up before, either. But he’d never felt this compromised before. Ba’al had brought out the worst in him. 

Jack didn't expect danger around every corner. He could feel the city around them, though, like a vibrant living being, humming with the content of having new inhabitants.

And he still didn't know what to make of it. Maybe it was just a figment of his imagination, maybe he was still too tense... but Jackson was right. There had been a connection the moment Jack had stepped out of the gate hopper. 

Whether he could read Jack's dilemma or he was just changing tactics Jack didn't know. But Big Daniel's eyes softened as he said, “Trust me, Jack? Trust both of us and give it a go. You said it yourself before – it's cool. The gene is your gift. Use it to our advantage. Make it your ally. Make Atlantis our ally.”

 _Yep_ , Jack thought, _Christmas all over again._ The kid had told him the very same thing when he had tried to heal Jackson. 

As they were standing there in the sunshine Jack knew they didn't have many choices to start with. They needed to find a way to survive. Basic needs. And then they needed to find a way home. 

He raised a hand and traced the outline of Daniel's face with his fingertips. Beloved. Known territory. “Sleep with me.”

It used to be one of those things they'd done. Going to bed together after particular bad or exhausting missions. Just falling in there and sleeping the worst of it off; safe in the knowledge they'd both made it home alive and more or less in one piece. That the other half of their soul was still going to be there when they woke up.

As they closed the balcony door behind them and settled down left and right to the kid, who had rolled to the middle of the bed and hogged all the good space for himself, Jack felt the darkness of the previous days backing off.

And when sleep returned he vaguely registered his mind finding and linking with Atlantis again...

  
Fin


End file.
